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DELIBERATELY IGNORANT OR JUST IGNORANT
02/11/2010
Lately, prominent Republicans, both commentators and politicians, have been proudly and unabashedly displaying an amazing amount of ignorance regarding crucial issues facing our country, and there are only two possibilities. Either they are profoundly ignorant, which I believe is true in some cases, or they are deliberately promulgating falsehoods for personal and political gain. We have a number of clear examples.
The first regards the East Coast snowstorm and the assertions of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and assorted Foxies and Republican legislators (and the Virginia Republican Party) that the mega-snowstorm on the East coast is proof that global warming is a fantasy of the left. One snowy winter, in other words, means climate change is not real and the climate change deniers amuse themselves with their mocking of Al Gore and the thousands of climate scientists who would like to see the planet and the human race survive.
These blabbermouth right wingers are either uneducated (and in a few cases downright stupid) or love duping their viewers and listeners who have limited high school education, little or no college education, and an unwillingness to read actual science. In fact, climate scientists have been predicting exactly these types of storms, noting that the increasing global temperatures (last decade was the hottest on record) put more moisture in the air and create more instability in the atmosphere, thus causing more intense storms. Furthermore, climate scientists distinguish between weather, which refers to day to day conditions in a specific location, and climate, which involves patterns over time and over a much larger region. Yet these people seem ignorant as to the difference.
Saying that one snowstorm is evidence that there is no long term climate change is like a man saying he feels good and therefore will never have a heart attack. Only a trained physician can look inside his arteries with sophisticated imaging equipment, and say if they are blocked, leaving him vulnerable to a sudden heart attack. The key word here is “trained.” It takes years to become a physician, and even more years to develop the skill and expertise to diagnose certain illnesses with scientific data. What a casual observer sees with his eyes does not constitute evidence of disease or lack thereof. Otherwise, we would all be physicians. The same is true for climate scientists who are able to look at data that the silly talkers probably couldn’t even understand if someone explained it to them.
A second area of ignorance is with respect to the underwear bomber. Pardon the pun, but many right wing legislators have their panties in a twist over the fact that he was arrested, read his Miranda rights, and will be tried in an American court. They have criticized the Obama administration for their “slow response” and for allowing Umar Abdulmatallab to “lawyer up.” Except now, we find out that the administration was not slow. In fact, the undie bomber was arrested immediately, began spilling information to the FBI, and only after about an hour decided to stop talking. That’s when they read him his rights, which they must do or they cannot use whatever he says against himself. Everyone arrested on American soil is entitled to these rights, yet some Republicans say they are not.
Newt Gingrich, for instance, when confronted with the fact that the Bush administration treated shoe bomber Richard Reid in exactly the same way, said that Reid was entitled to those rights because he was an American citizen, which of course was wrong. Reid is a British citizen.
Still, Mitch McConnell, Pete Hoekstra, Kit Bond, and John Boehner are claiming ignorance. They say they were not told the undie bomber was mirandized, though they should have understood that, being lawmakers and all. If they want this guy to be convicted, then things have to go by the book, or the evidence will be thrown out. And what nobody is willing to acknowledge is what has recently been revealed by the Justice Department. After Abdulmutallab was read his rights, his family flew over from Yemen and convinced him to talk. The FBI has reportedly gained a great deal of “actionable intelligence” as a result. Guess torture isn’t the best way to get information from terrorists, which has to be disconcerting to those who love the idea of torture.
Then, of course, there’s the ignorance regarding healthcare reform. The Queen of the ignorant, Sarah Palin, started the nonsense last August when her Facebook writer began saying Obama wanted “death panels,” which was a total fabrication. Other Republicans routinely call health care reform a government takeover. So let’s get down to basics and educate the uneducated and gullible.
There are two bills: a House bill and a Senate bill. The House bill has a public option, giving perhaps 10 million Americans the ability to purchase a health insurance policy from a government administered cooperative. The Senate bill, which is the only bill that can possibly become law, has no such option. All insurance plans, other than the current Medicare and Medicaid systems, will be private, for-profit plans. So there will be no public or government run option other than what already exists.
Where, then, does the idea of a government takeover come in? Perhaps from the idea that some families will receive government subsidies or tax cuts to help them purchase insurance, or from the idea that there will be a mandate for everyone to purchase insurance. Let’s back up and see why those two policies are necessary.
Everyone agrees that in order to have all citizens covered under some kind of policy, insurance companies will have to stop denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions. So we will definitely have to put that into law. If we do that alone, however, with no other laws, then many people will wait until they have a catastrophic problem before they buy insurance. That will mean insurance companies will enroll a large number of sick people and very few healthy people in their plans. They will then claim they have to raise rates, making insurance unaffordable for many. So the only way to ensure that there is a large enough pool of subscribers to cover costs, everyone will be required to buy insurance, just as they are required to buy car insurance now. But if we require everyone to buy insurance, there will be some who still cannot afford it. That’s where government subsidies come in. So all three of those elements must be part of a health care package, even if every insurance company is a private, for-profit company – except, as we said before, for Medicare and Medicaid which are already in place.
We already have an idea of what might happen if we don’t pass health insurance reform. Just this past week, Anthem Blue Cross in California raised their rates by 39% over last year. My insurance company, Blue Shield, raised rates by 35%. They say they are doing this because they have fewer subscribers, because people have lost jobs and cannot afford insurance. This will only get worse if we do nothing.
Yet Republican legislators and blabbermouths on television and radio keep screaming talking points: killing grandma, government takeover, death panels. Is this deliberate ignorance, or just ignorance? Is it an effort to defeat Democrats no matter what happens to the people? I suspect so. That means, of course, that they think the American people are stupid enough to fall for their lies and deceptions.
The point here is that the only way to vote intelligently and responsibly is to educate ourselves and not just swallow the talking points on FOX. It’s fine to disagree on the best approach to solve the people’s problems, as long as we are honestly searching for the truth. But Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and others are either deliberately misleading people, or just plain dumb. We know how Republicans make fun of professors and universities and scientists, all in an effort to pit “elites” against “common folk.”
Sorry, people, common folk can’t solve the problems of this economy, this health care system and the decaying environment. They couldn't even solve them when life was much simpler. If there ever was a group of elitists in this country, it was the Founding Fathers.
The problems of this country today are too big and too complicated for ordinary plain folks to solve. Just as we wouldn’t trust a pig farmer to perform complex surgery on us, so we must not allow morons like Glenn Beck to decide what’s best for this country. (Beck is now saying we should be like the Chinese and have a 100 year plan. So he is calling Obama a communist, while he is imitating Mao. The mind reels!)
Boys and girls, no matter what your political affiliation, education is a good thing, the more the better. This is why we need a robust public school system, where the teaching methods and personalities of many different teachers challenge children to think as they explore the worlds of science, math, history and political science. Private schools can be good, too, as long as there is a diversity of teachers and a diversity of thinking. If teachers are open, encourage debate, and allow differing views to be honestly examined, then private schools can be just as good, and in some cases better than public schools.
Yet Republicans mock the highly educated, the scientists, historians, and mathematicians and encourage ignorance and lies in the form of talking points, just to achieve ratings or power.
No matter what your political affiliation, you cannot believe this is good for the country.
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
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